(comic from Google Images)
PG says at RevGals: After an exhausting election here in the states it's time for some spirit lifting! Join me with a nice cup of tea or coffee or cocoa and let's sit back and read the Funny Papers!
Amen, let's think about something less weighty for a bit! Thanks, PG!!
1. What was your favorite comic strip as a child? Being a very weird child, I always liked reading Mary Worth and Apartment 3-G and Rex Morgan, MD. I thought of them as the "grownup" comics and most of the time they made no sense to me. My dad had told me he used to read Mary Worth when he was little and that she was an apple woman - selling apples on the street during the Great Depression. Wow, was she well-preserved in my day and beyond!
...I also loved Peanuts and Prince Valiant. And as a teenager and college student: Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County. LOVE ME some Bloom County! Its author, Berke Breathed, attended my high school in Houston (before me). My brush with greatness! Opus is my hero.
2. Which comic strip today most consistently tickles your funny bone? One Big Happy by Rick Detorie. It's not in the paper I get, so I get my fix on the internet:
Also love For Better or for Worse (glad they are running the old ones over and not just cancelling it)
3. Which Peanuts character is closest to being you? Well, in order to answer this, I took the Which Peanuts Character Are You? quiz. And I am Charlie Brown.
You are Charlie Brown. You are always optimistic and persistent, and everyone appreciates your simple sweetness. Sometimes, however, your anxieties get the best of you, and life's mysteries can confuse you.
4. Some say that comic strips have replaced philosophy as a paying job, so to speak. Does this ring true with you? Indeed. Who has philosophy as a paying job any more? Where have all the philosophy shops gone? Social commentary is a big part of many comics, including of course Doonesbury, which I've also been reading for years.
5. What do you think the appeal is for the really long running comic strips like Blondie, Family Circus, Dennis the Menace as some examples? Familiarity...we like to look back at those things we have read for years. They never change and I think that feels good to us...in a world in which everything is constantly changing.
Bonus question: Which discontinued comic strip would you like to see back in print? Calvin and Hobbes.
